The Day I Stood Up To A Bully

I bet he didn't forget it anytime soon.

It was a beautiful spring day, and my oldest son, then in what was called “Junior High,” had gone to a nearby park. A couple of hours later, I popped my other two boys in the car (probably without car seats—this was a different time!) to head over and find him so I could run a couple of errands.

I saw three boys near my son’s age walking nearby and called out, “Have you seen Jonathan?”

One of them, quite a bit larger than the other two, responded with a “F*** you” and an obscene gesture.

I told my two younger ones to stay put and leaped out of the car, slamming the door behind me. As I walked up to those three boys, I looked the big one in the eye and shouted at him, “What did you just say to me?”

He looked away and refused to answer. I got into his face and, again, only louder, “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?”

I went on, “Did you say ‘F*** you to me? How DARE you speak to a woman that way?” My voice became louder and angrier and I continued to demand an answer.

“What is your name?” No response. At this point, I turned to the two smaller boys, both clearly very, very uncomfortable, and insisted, “Tell me his name, NOW!” After asking multiple times, with each ask my voice increasing in volume and my anger more obvious, one spoke up and gave the name of the big one.

It was a familiar name, and I turned back to the potty-mouthed one and told him in no uncertain terms that he was NEVER to speak to a woman like that again and that I would be phoning his parents when I got back home.

I did make that call, much calmer, and carefully explained what I had experienced and how I had reacted—I did not whitewash my actions but also made it clear that no one, absolutely no one, especially not a teen-aged boy, had the right to speak to me like this.

And yes, the young man got into a lot of trouble.

A few days later, I was out taking a walk and was passing by a boy of a similar age when he made an obscene gesture at me. To put it mildly, he got the same treatment—I strongly suspect he soiled himself when face to face with my anger. I got his name and, again, phoned the parents, this time with a less than satisfactory response.

But the word got out by then, “Do NOT mess with this woman . . . or her children.”

It was a good reputation to have, and my kids thanked me for being their mom.

I had not thought about this incident in years when I came across this Substack post about the way Gavin Newsom is calling out Trump’s bullying tactics by bullying him in return.

Bully the Bully: The Psychology of What Gavin Newsom Is Getting Right

Now, I am not by nature a bully and much prefer the so-called “when they go low, we go high” methodology. But as this article makes clear, the only language confirmed bullies understand is that of bullying itself.

For the bully, a kinder and more reasoned response confirms the power that the bully has and reinforces that mindset and behavior pattern.

I have written a piece earlier about the “mean girls” that inhabit every place and society.

There, I acknowledged that I’ve slowly made progress at holding onto my own soul when confronted with Mean Girl culture—and no matter how old we get, we’ll always find it simply because we are a bunch of flawed human beings, all of us trying in one way or another to get to the top of the mountain.

However, after reading about a more effective way to deal with bullies, I began to realize that learning the skills to “bully” in return, i.e., calling people out on their behaviors, as I did with those young boys, would have served me much better.

That’s a tightrope walk—to stand up for oneself without becoming a hateful, insensitive person. I am starting to think it is one we should all practice—in the long run, it might lead to a far more civilized world than we have right now.

And we could use one.

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